Marcela Zhou Huang

"Marcela is a second year medical student of the UCLA PRIME program. She was born in Mexicali, BC, Mexico, to Chinese immigrant parents. Throughout her childhood, she was immersed in the Mexican culture while maintaining her Chinese ancestry at home. At the age of 12, Marcela and her older sister moved across the border to Calexico to attend school. After graduating from high school, Marcela attended community college and eventually graduated from UC San Diego with a major in Human Biology. Marcela is particularly interested in border health and immigrant barriers to accessing health care. Prior to medical school, Marcela worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator in nephrology and served at various clinics in San Diego, CA, that aimed to provide quality health care to the uninsured in San Diego, including the UCSD Student-Run Free Clinic. Over the years, Marcela found her calling in medicine when she found a way to combine social justice with medicine to address the health inequities that many communities face. Marcela hopes to ultimately serve as a primary care physician and address the socioeconomic, linguistic, and cultural factors that affect an individual's health."

Undergrad Institution: UC San Diego

Hometown: Mexicali, Mexico; Calexico, CA